Rethinking Education and Development

Yoko Mochizuki
December 17, 2004

The vision of education for sustainable development is a world where everyone has the opportunity to benefit from quality education and learn the values, behaviour and lifestyles required for a sustainable future and for positive societal transformation.

UNESCO, 2004

The above quotation conveys UNESCO’s (2004) “global vision” of education for sustainable development. How many times have you read a statement like this one, celebrating the transformative power of education, and positing education as the fulcrum for ‘development’— be it personal development, economic development, national development, or ‘sustainable development’? I suspect quite a few times.

On the other hand, how often do you find a critical examination of the very notion of 'development'? There are endless discussions about how the many international declarations, covenants, and conventions organized by the United Nations and other groups could and should be made into reality or be enforced more effectively, but there is hardly any questioning of the underlying premises: the positive connection between education and development, and the value of a grand social enterprise promoting 'development.' To be sure, we risk undermining our raison d'être if we challenge the very meaning of 'development.’ Why should we bother?

At the dawn of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD), I joined UNU-IAS to contribute to redirecting education towards ‘sustainable development’ as a junior scholar trained in comparative education and the sociology of education. I do not believe that my mission can be achieved merely by celebrating and promoting a utopian vision of education as a panacea for individual and collective development. During the course of my postdoctoral fellowship, I plan to write a series of reflections on ‘buzzwords’ in the discourse about education and development, using examples from Japan, where UNU-IAS is located. These reflections are meant to draw attention to the cultural and social embeddedness of education, by highlighting how educational concepts, policies and practices are imported, modified and adapted. Together, they will show how the context matters in promoting a global education initiative such as 'education for sustainable development' (ESD).

There is now widespread acknowledgment that culture matters and that the context matters in promoting development, and everybody speaks of the need for ‘local relevance.’ UNESCO (2004) states that the global vision of ESD “will find expression in varied socio-cultural contexts”. Yet, it is not easy to imagine ESD which is locally relevant and culturally appropriate. When I’ll return to this space in February, I will critically examine the notion of ‘education reform’, using a case of ‘progressive’ educational reforms in Japan instituted under the Allied Occupation (1945-52). In April, I will write about gender equality in education using a case of Japanese women’s colleges. My project is to challenge taken–for-granted assumptions and un-problematised notions in much mainstream development thinking in a constructive and interesting way. I hope that my reflections on ‘buzzwords’ such as ‘gender’ will provide us with a clue as to articulating a global vision in local terms.

If you find my remarks challenging or unsettling, please do not be offended. I would rather challenge you than simply repeat what you have already read elsewhere. Your thoughts and comments are most welcome to make this series a collaborative learning space for ESD. Please feel free to contact me at Mochizuki@ias.unu.edu.

Yoko Mochizuki is a Postdoctoral Fellow with UNU-IAS Education for Sustainable Development team.

References

Chabbot, Colette & Ramirez, Francisco O. (2000). Development and Education. In Maureen T. Hallinan (Ed.), Handbook of the Sociology of Education (pp. 163-187). Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

UNESCO (2004, October). United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development: Draft International Implementation Scheme 2005-2014.